"Ja jestem mężczyzną, a ona jest kobietą."

Translation: I am a man and she is a woman.

[Robertoface]

Avril Lavigne's English language release of Sk8er Boi scanned like this.

[Frizzank2]

Can I make it any more obvious?

[Kulink]

Is 'a' used as 'and' between sentences and phrases, and 'i' when listing things?

[br0d4]

AND = "A" when there is any type of contradictory between both parts:

• "I love you and you love him" - "Ja kocham ciebie a ty (kochasz) jego."
• "He cooks and she cleans the house" - "On gotuje a ona sprząta dom"
• "She is young and he is old" - "Ona jest młoda a on (jest) stary." (In the phrases containing contradiction, the repeated verb can be omitted). BUT: if the contradiction is not real, you only use different words to describe similar state, you go into nuances: "He is old and she is also not quite young" - "On jest stary a ona też niemłoda" (there is however some age difference between them, so she is younger than him) or "On jest stary i ona też niemłoda" (they are pretty similar, only you want to be polite and do not use the word "old" to describe a woman).
• "Her blouse is white and her skirt is red" - "Jej bluzka jest biała a jej spódnica (jest) czerwona." - it is so when the used verb is concerns the clothes itself, not the person who wears them; It works the same for longer lists: "Her hat is blue, her blouse is white, her skirt is red and her shoes are black" - "Jej kapelusz jest niebieski, bluzka biała, spódnica czerwona, a buty czarne." see also below.

AND = "I" when there is clear connection or similarity between both parts:

• "I love you and you love me" - "Ja kocham ciebie i ty kochasz mnie." (Attention, in this very case it would be also correct "Ja kocham ciebie a ty mnie", to underline sort of dualism: "you"-"me", while usage of i underlines the mutual similarity. With the usage of a, the repeated verb should be omitted).
• "He cooks and she cooks, too" - "On gotuje i ona też." or "On gotuje i ona też gotuje." or "On gotuje i ona gotuje."
• "She is young and he is young" - "Ona jest młoda i on jest młody."
• "Her blouse is white and her skirt is white" - "Jej bluzka jest biała i jej spódnica jest biała." or "Jej bluzka jest biała i jej spódnica też."
• BUT: when you enumerate the parts of clothing that somebody wears i.e. it is about the person, and not about the clothes, you rather use i no matter, whether they are similar or different (as there is no contradictory within the person itself, and the verb relates to the person, not the clothing): "She wears a white blouse and a white skirt" - "Ona nosi białą bluzkę i białą spódnicę."; "She wears a white blouse and a red skirt" - "Ona nosi białą bluzkę i czerwoną spódnicę."

[hivemindx]

Thanks so much. That's quite complex and you explained it really well.

[Kulink]

Dziękuję, to jest bardzo pomocne

[mihxal]

https://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/a#a_.28j.C4.99zyk_polski.29

[m1k0]

So "i" is more "and ALSO"

[br0d4]

Yes.

Polish i is and, also, in addition, as well as
Polish a is and, while, whereas, but

[Tamara207217]

...and the rest is history

[robin110412]

When I clicked on polish a, it told me it meant english "a" which didn't make sense but out of context I deduced it meant "and"

[br0d4]

Yes, it means "a". Please, read the older comments. The English word "and" means many things, that may translate to various words in other languages.

[robin110412]

I'm sorry but "and" never means the article "a" in English and the hint only gave three versions of "Polish 'a'=English 'a'"
I didn't see reference to this in any of the starting comments, so I apologize for starting a new one.
I won't bother you about it anymore. I will just ignore that inaccurate "hint."

[br0d4]

Sorry, I misread your comment. Of course, the English conjunction "and" does not mean the English article "a".

I meant, that English "and" means Polish "a", and Polish "i". And more, because "and" has many meanings in English. Depending on context, it may be also translated into Polish: "z/ze", "więc", "następnie", "po", "plus".

I'll let it know to the PL←EN team, so that they fix the hint.

[robin110412]

Thank you! The Polish definitely have a lot of ways to say "and"!

[br0d4]

Well, Polish is hard, but this time the root of the problem is in English ;-) c.f. https://www.lexico.com/definition/and or https://www.thefreedictionary.com/and - some (but not all) of the meanings are translated here https://pl.pons.com/t%C5%82umaczenie/angielski-polski/and - but, frankly, I haven't seen a well elaborated English-Polish dictionary entry for "and"...

[DorotaJarosz]

The hint "a" in quotes is for the letter "a" or the graphic representation of the sound.

Similarly "3" is a graphical representation of the number three or the digit "3".

[alik1989]

The first hint for the Polish "a" that I can see is "and".

[robin110412]

I also see that when I click on a in the sentence at the top of this discussion, but in the sentence in the lesson which prompted my comment, there was only 3x "a"